by Hector Cook
BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A SONG?
IN AUSTRALIA, the Gibb brothers had become as well known for their songwriting and guesting on other artists’ records, as they were for appearances and recordings in their own name. Barry, Robin and Maurice have always considered themselves songwriters first, recording artists second and performers last, and this will always be so. In England, they still clung dearly to that principle and time that could have been spent promoting The Bee Gees was often put to other use.
Even before ‘New York Mining Disaster’ began its ascent of the charts in April 1967, some of their Australian recordings were catching up with them. In 1966, Ronnie Burns had discovered a treasure trove of demo recordings from which to select songs for his new album, and as the names of Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb increased in prominence, so did requests to sample their back catalogue. The release of The Bee Gees’ own renditions was still some years away, so at the time these songs were very much regarded as new compositions.
As early as March 4, in what was their first proper recording on English soil, all three brothers and Colin Petersen were in the studio for Billy J. Kramer’s second solo single following his split from The Dakotas. The session had come about through a mixture of circumstance and Robert Stigwood’s perseverance on behalf of the Gibbs. “What happened was,” Billy began, “Brian Epstein said to me that George Martin was very tied up with a lot of projects and would I mind doing a record with Robert Stigwood. I had a meeting with Robert, and he played me Bee Gees’ tapes, demo’s, all sorts of things that they’d written. ‘Spicks and Specks’, things like that. Then I think I had a copy sent to me of ‘Town Of Tuxley Toymaker (Part One)’.
“I remember saying to him that they were great. I’d seen these fellas in the office and had been told about them and what they did, and how they were popular in Australia, and I heard some of the songs, and they said, ‘Well, this one would be a good one for you.’ And then we got with a musical director and we set the key, which was something I’d never done before.
“I was very inexperienced,” Billy continued. “If I recorded with The Dakotas, they could transpose a key if it was in the wrong key, they could do it mentally, instantly! If it was in D, and I said that’s too low, I want it in E, or if it was in E and it was too high, I’d say put it in D and there was no problem – but when you’ve got a big orchestra, well, you can’t do that, it all has to be written out.
“So, I thought at the time, the day of the session when I had this huge orchestra with me that I’d pitched the song too low. But everybody thought that it was fine. That’s the only thing that unnerved me. And I’d never worked with session men before, it was the first time I’d ever been in a studio without The Dakotas, with all these top session men. It was a Saturday morning, which was unusual in them days. Sessions now go on all night and all day, but this was 10 o’clock in the morning to one o’clock finish – all wrapped up. The Bee Gees did the vocal backing. They had very distinctive voices. I thought it was a great song.”
Billy was generous in his praise of the Gibbs. “I think that they must rate alongside The Beatles for their songwriting. You think of the amount of songs that they’ve written both for themselves and other people. Some people just don’t get the acclaim, it’s just the way it is. There’s no answer to it, I’ve given up on trying to work that one out, why the press are kind to some people and horrible to others.”
Next in line were The Peppermint Circus about whom little is known. Their April single ‘All The King’s Horses’ appeared on the obscure Olga label, but on this occasion the release lacked any Gibb involvement.
One of the best of the demos recorded by Ronnie Burns was ‘Butterfly’, and it received the first of several British airings in June from Unit Four Plus Two. The Hertfordshire based psychedelic group had scored some very minor hits either side of their big 1965 number one hit, ‘Concrete And Clay’ and their version of ‘Butterfly’ deserved a lot more attention than it received. The band split in 1969, Russ Ballard being the only member to achieve any kind of fame in later years.
In August, it was the turn of a Sheffield artist, David Holgate Grundy, to try his hand at one of these early Bee Gees’ demos. Better known as Dave Berry, he faced the same dilemma as several other British teen idols of the era: R&B was obviously nearest and dearest to his heart, but he needed to record blatantly pop material to make the hit parade. “As we did at that particular time, it was a matter of my A & R man sending material through to me, because I’m not a songwriter,” Dave explained. “All my recorded material was sent to me by different music publishers. I had done a few TV shows and concerts with The Bee Gees at that time, and they came up with this song that was sent to me by their music publishers at the time.”
Ronnie Burns had passed on ‘Forever’, and even though it was over a year old by the time of its release, it still captured the mood of the era. “I remember it was just after the Sgt Pepper album,” Dave continued, “so that’s why there was that phasing on the voice. We were all listening to what other people were doing, the new albums, the new singles, and obviously everyone was going in and wondering, ‘How did [The Beatles] get that effect?’ So that’s why there’s that sort of phasing on the vocals and on the backing.
“I’ve performed quite a few of their songs live and I do think that their Sixties songs are very underrated, they’re not played as much as they should be. I think they’re classic songs, but for some reason you just don’t hear them played.”
Albert Hammond is remembered by many in Britain for his big 1973 hit, ‘Free Electric Band’, but elsewhere in the world he is better known for its immediate predecessor, ‘It Never Rains (In Southern California)’. However, in 1967 he was the guitarist in an unknown five-piece band called Family Dogg. Named after their début single of the same name, they selected ‘Storm’ as its B-side thus ensuring that this particular cover version would remain consigned to obscurity, where it languishes to this day.
Family Dogg did manage to score a number six hit a couple of years later but two groups who didn’t even achieve one solitary hit were The Montanas and The Sounds; their versions of ‘Top Hat’ being as anonymous as its performers.
By the end of 1967, the Gibbs were almost as well known in the USA and Europe as they were in Britain and a Spanish band were next to get in on the act. Los Bravos were far from being an unknown entity in the UK though; their version of ‘Black Is Black’ having provided Decca with a number two in the summer of 1966. The previously unreleased ‘Like Nobody Else’ joined its predecessors by failing to even make a slight dent on the hit parade. They also recorded a Spanish version, ‘Como Nadie Mas’, for release to their home market.
American soul singer Nina Simone recorded ‘In The Morning (Morning Of My Life)’, but her time to have a hit with a Gibb song was yet to come.
Although its release was delayed until the following year, one other of the Australian demos appeared before the Gibbs’ own version did. The Brigade were a Melbourne based quartet who recorded two singles on the Australian Astor label before they disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, although they did support The Rolling Stones on their first tour down under. Maurice’s ‘All By Myself’ was the A-side of their début single which was an early production credit for Ron Tudor who became well known both as a producer and for the success of his Fable label.
With the exception of the Billy J. Kramer recording, on which the brothers were actively involved, Barry, Robin and Maurice had little or no say in these releases. Where they were far better placed to exercise control over their work was when they had written it either specifically for, or at the request of, another artist, and there was no shortage of such releases during this period either.
* * *
The Monopoly were a four-piece outfit from Birmingham that had been formed by lead singer Raymond Froggat and which comprised Hartley Cain on guitar, drummer Len Ablethorpe with one Lou Clark on bass. Now Sir Louis, in recognition of his subsequent years as conducto
r of The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, not forgetting his work with The Electric Light Orchestra and the Hooked On Classics albums, the April ’67 recording of ‘House Of Lords’ was a somewhat inauspicious start to his musical career.
“From what I recollect, it was the first record that we ever made, the first record that I ever made in my life,” recalls Sir Louis. “We were youngsters, in our teens in the Sixties, and we were signed up by Polydor. They had another office in Birmingham where they had some talent scouts. The Polydor scout guy phoned up the people in London, and they came up to listen to us; gave us a recording test and offered us a deal.
“Then it was a matter of material. The Bee Gees had just been signed up and they were much more important at Polydor than we were, and I think a few Bee Gees things were presented to us to have a go at. I’m pretty sure we did ‘Red Chair Fade Away’ as a demo, or maybe even recorded it, but it never got released. ‘House Of Lords’ was one of the things we considered. It was given to us by the record producer [Terry Kennedy].”
Raymond Froggat described The Bee Gees’ own version as being “in a definitive Beatles style, with two-part harmony encompassing the whole of the lyric. We found this very disconcerting as the style was completely out of character with the direction we had hoped to follow.” Displaying the lack of confidence one would expect of such relative novices, Raymond confirmed that the band’s own musical interpretation was a note perfect copy of the demo version, such was their desire not to offend. The recording took all day and most of the night to complete but Raymond was unhappy with the outcome, claiming embarrassment at the final result, and even going so far as to say that he was thankful that the record itself didn’t get any airplay. Interestingly, he revealed, “We also felt that we could write a better song than the one The Bee Gees wrote for us.”
Having left The Monopoly pretty much to their own devices at Advision Recording Studio in New Bond Street, the brothers, and the eldest one in particular, were determined to have a greater influence on the next song they chose to give away.
“To prove that we could make it as composers,” Barry said, “it became an ambition for us to have a hit by another artist singing one of our songs. Gerry Marsden did one. Don’t forget that he’d set a new record when his first three releases [with The Pacemakers] all went to number one on the charts. But the mixture of our song and Gerry’s voice didn’t work. The trouble was that we knew how the song should be done, and the whole character of it was completely changed at Gerry’s session.
“We realised that it would be better if we actually went along to the session and explained exactly how the song should be done. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. Really, the composer doesn’t even expect to be allowed to dictate how one of his songs should be done.”
The song Gerry recorded for CBS/Columbia, Barry and Robin’s ‘Gilbert Green’, survives in a Bee Gees version on a concert tape, and is so good that it is hard to imagine why it was given away. The concert arrangement is presumably what they recorded, with a Robin lead vocal joined by Barry for the short choruses, and an unusual extended orchestral ending. While Bill Shepherd arranged Gerry’s recording, which Robert Stigwood produced on June 27, the live Bee Gees’ take blows it away, mainly for Robin’s outstanding delivery on the four verses of strange storyline lyrics and his high notes at the chorus. If the Gibbs ever do consider letting out some unreleased songs, this should be one of them.
The Sands were five young men from Middlesex, former school friends of Brian May of Queen fame, who were signed by Brian Epstein for NEMS after he had spotted them performing at the Cromwell Club in London. Their first incarnation was The Tridents before they changed their name to The Others which earned them a single-release deal with Fontana Records in 1964. Now, three years on, Robert Stigwood picked them up for his Reaction label and, on July 24, they recorded ‘Mrs. Gillespie’s Refrigerator’ as the A-side of their only single after Robert had played a Bee Gees’ demo version to them.
Esther and Abi Ofarim were also relatively unknown during the summer of 1967; the release of their smash hit ‘Cinderella Rockefella’ still being some months away. Although Barry’s ‘Morning Of My Life’ occupied the A-side of this Philips release, and soared to number two in the German charts, of more interest was the flip ‘Garden Of My Home’, again written by all three brothers. It seems an unlikely alliance, but the ease with which the Ofarims were able to interpret both compositions gave clues as to the future ability of the brothers to adapt their style of writing to almost any type of music that was called for. Both titles were obviously favourites with the duo as both reappeared on their Live 1969 album.
August found the Gibbs inside a little studio just off Denmark Street to assist Adam Faith with his recording of the heavy psychedelic guitar ballad, ‘Cowman Milk Your Cow’, which is far from being as crass as the title suggested. Upon its release on September 22, it deserved a far better fate than the thumbs-down it received from a disinterested public, which was witnessing the decline of a brightly shining star.
Born Terry Nelhams, Adam had 24 chart hits for Parlophone, starting with two number ones, in a seven year period up to late 1966. “I think [‘Cowman’] came to me through one of The Roulettes, my backing group at the time,” Adam said. “They’d heard it and thought it would make a great record. I think we did hear a demo. I loved the song – it was one of those mad moments where you hear somebody, a writer, sing their own song so brilliantly, it fools you into thinking that you can achieve the same effect. Of course, who’s going to sing it better than those boys? Fantastic, amazing group! Brilliant!” The Roulettes’ guitarist was the same Russ Ballard who had been part of Unit Four Plus Two when they recorded ‘Butterfly’.
Barry agreed with Adam’s admission that the Gibbs were a hard act to follow vocally and expressed frustration that the performers of the Gibbs’ work didn’t possess the same degree of extrasensory perception that the brothers claim plays an important part in their collective writing process. Admitting to NME’s Norrie Drummond that he didn’t particularly like any of the cover versions that had been released prior to the interview’s publication that September, Barry concluded, “I think every songwriter must feel as we do. Somehow no one who has recorded one of our numbers has made as good a job as we had hoped. When you write a song you have an idea of how it should be sung, but it doesn’t work out that way if someone else records it. No one so far has been able to get the proper feel of a song. Maybe in time we’ll come to accept that this is the way it’s got to be. Playwrights must feel the same way, I suppose, when they see actors portraying the characters they have created.”
1967 was a busy year, as the boys had also helped out on a couple of singles where the performers released material that had recently been recorded by The Bee Gees for their own use. Upon his arrival from Australia, Johnny Young was given ‘Craise Finton Kirk (Royal Academy Of Arts)’ and ‘I Am The World’ for a Polydor release in August. Although it made no impact in the UK, he was rewarded with a Top 30 hit back in Australia, thanks in part to the obvious inclusion of three extra voices on the A-side. ‘Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You’, September’s follow-up, failed to chart.
Paul Oscar Beuselinck, the son of a show business lawyer, was born in Peterborough shortly after the end of World War II and first came to Robert Stigwood’s attention while playing piano with Screaming Lord Sutch and The Savages in 1964. Robert himself launched Paul’s solo career in 1966 with the first of four single releases for his Reaction label. The second, ‘Join My Gang’ was written by Pete Townshend and the third, ‘Over The Wall We Go’, by David Bowie. “Robert Stigwood decided to do this campaign on me,” Paul said. “He’d done it with a singer called Simon Scott, and he’d put out a lot of busts and things; so he’d decided that I’d be called Oscar – my middle name is Oscar – so that’s how it came about. And he put out a lot of sort of Oscars, busts of me that looked like Oscars.”
The fourth in the series was
‘Holiday’, where he took advantage of the decision by Polydor not to release The Bee Gees’ version in Britain, despite its success elsewhere in Europe and the States. Robin was only too glad to lend some very evident vocal support as Paul explained. “I’d heard the record, because Robin sang it on their album. It was recorded in a studio in Portland Place I remember, and [he] came down and did the backing on it. I’m not sure if Barry was there, but Robin was certainly there, and I think Maurice was [too].” Robert Stigwood regained production credits again, while musical direction was courtesy of Bill Shepherd. Paul’s next single was released on Polydor a few months later before his manager cottoned on to the fact that the Oscar nomenclature just wasn’t working. He was relaunched as Paul Nicholas, and although his first chart success was still eight years away, film stardom was just around the corner. Indeed, between 1969 and 1999, he would appear in 19 films or TV series, with Tommy, The Jazz Singer and Just Good Friends perhaps being the most representative.
Whilst The Bee Gees’ ‘Words’ climbed steadily up the charts in January 1968, the other simultaneous single release from the film The Mini Mob didn’t fare nearly as well. ‘All Our Christmases’ was the eighth and final flop for Decca outfit, The Majority, who originally hailed from Hull. A harmony group like The Bee Gees, they did a very nice job with this pleasant little ditty that had flowed from the pen of all three brothers. Discouraged by this latest failure, The Majority disbanded not long afterwards.
Meanwhile, across the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, another harmony-oriented group, a New York quintet of Italian descent called Sounds Of Modification, had included Barry’s ‘You’ on their album of the same name for Jubilee Records, which also popped up in the UK on the EMI subsidiary, Stateside.
Even though Barry protested tongue-in-cheek to the contrary, financial gain was never the main consideration for his interest in how other artists interpreted Gibb compositions. “It’s interesting when another singer does your song,” he suggested, “because when you write something, you kind of sing it in your mind, and it’s your own voice you hear. So when someone else puts their ideas into it, it often comes out very different. It’s great that an artist such as Paul [Jones] should want to record one of our songs. Same with Billy Fury doing one. Artists of that calibre know good from bad. Of course, it’s not only the prestige we like, but the money!”